Witte Museum Celebrates Dinosaur Hall

Dinosaurs returning to Witte in 2017 with Naylor Family Dinosaur Gallery

By Kathleen Petty

Dinosaurs are coming to the Witte Museum.

In the spring of 2017, the Witte Museum will open its first permanent dinosaur exhibition. On Tuesday, Dec. 1, museum CEO Marise McDermott announced the exhibit is being funded through a $4 million donation from longtime Witte supporter Susan Moulton. The exhibition—named the Naylor Family Dinosaur Gallery in honor of Moulton’s family—is part of the Witte’s larger $100 million renovation and expansion project. “Today is a pretty pivotal day,” McDermott said. “Today we announce a transformational gift to the city’s museum that will ensure that the new Witte will have the first permanent dinosaur gallery in its history.”

Moulton said her son, Will, who was killed in a car accident in 2007, inspires her philanthropy. He loved dinosaurs and always enjoyed coming to the Witte Museum, along with his brother Charlie. “Philanthropy has really saved my life,” she said, speaking before a song and hula dance was performed in honor of Will.

The dinosaur gallery will focus on dinosaurs and creatures that lived in Texas millions of years ago, said Thomas Adams, Ph.D., curator of paleontology and geology. It will feature a life-size Tyrannosaurs rex and an Acrocanthosaurus that will stand on footprints molded from actual dinosaur footprints uncovered at nearby Government Canyon State Park. Along with artifacts, the exhibition will feature 3-D animated dinosaurs, the chance to excavate dinosaur bones, a research lab and more. “We’re telling the story that is present in Texas,” Adams said, speaking while leading a hardhat tour of the future gallery space.

With her gift, Moulton becomes the largest single, private donor to the Witte Museum. Moulton, who is president of the Will Smith Foundation and a Witte board trustee, already has funded a classroom, the outdoor Will Smith Amphitheater and other areas of the museum, McDermott said.